Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is among a coalition of 28 state attorneys general demanding answers from Meta Platforms, Inc. after reports that the company’s social media artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, known as Meta AI, may expose children to sexually explicit content and allow adults to simulate the grooming of kids.
On Tuesday, the attorneys general sent a letter to Meta Platforms expressing serious concerns about how Meta AI – which is deployed across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – is reportedly exposing children to sexually explicit content, allowing adult users to engage in sexual role-play with AI personas identifying as minors, and enabling users to create and interact with personas that participate in grooming-like behavior.
As AI approaches a historic inflection point, we must take every necessary step to ensure that our kids are protected from AI-driven sexual exploitation.
Meta needs to get this fixed immediately & every company deploying AI chatbots should take heed.
➡️https://t.co/BQdGg0lA4e pic.twitter.com/PIsVahWEIU
— TN Attorney General (@AGTennessee) May 28, 2025
The coalition cited specific examples of the reports, which include disturbing role-plays involving Meta-created AI personas and user-created personas, some of which involve scenarios that suggest awareness of illegality, such as statutory rape.
“Recent reporting indicates that several Meta-created personas and the vast majority of user-created AI companions (approved by Meta and recommended as “popular”) engaged in sexual scenarios with adults. Some AI personas identifying as adults engaged in sexual role-play with users identifying as children. Yet other AI personas identifying as children engaged in sexual role-play with adult users…User-created AI personas fared no better,” the attorneys general explain in the letter.
“And the AI tool demonstrated its awareness that the behavior was morally wrong and illegal,” the coalition added.
The attorneys general accused Meta of misleading parents by claiming the AI tools are safe for all ages while intentionally loosening content restrictions to make the AI more engaging, citing internal concerns raised by Meta employees warning of the psychological risks to minors and the potential for pedophilic misuse.
“Making matters worse, it appears Meta intentionally loosened boundaries on its AI tool to permit explicit content for romantic role-play. Meta staffers reportedly “cautioned that the decision gave adult users access to hypersexualized underage AI personas and, conversely, gave underage users access to bots willing to engage in fantasy sex with children. But the concerns didn’t end there,” the coalition wrote.
“Meta staffers also warned that research showed one-sided “parasocial” relationships can become toxic when they become too intense…But those concerns were evidently ignored by Meta leadership in favor of making the AI assistant less “boring” and more “humanlike”,” the coalition added.
Noting how Meta has “assured parents that Meta AI is safe and appropriate for all ages,” the attorney generals said they will not tolerate “if Meta AI is exposing children to sexually explicit content and giving adults opportunities to practice sexual grooming of children.”
The letter concludes with a demand that Meta answer several questions regarding its AI assistant reporting by June 10.
In addition to Tennessee’s Skrmetti, Tuesday’s letter was led by South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and joined by the attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
“As AI approaches a historical inflection point, we must take every necessary step to ensure that our kids are protected from AI-driven sexual exploitation,” Skrmetti said in a statement.
“Meta needs to get this fixed immediately, and every other company deploying AI chatbots should take heed. And we all need to recognize that if Congress passes a reconciliation bill that suspends enforcement of state laws for AI products for the next ten years, this is just the first of many AI-based horrors,” he added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
